November 30, 2017

88 year-old Rep. John Conyers is in a hospital today, as stress brought about by revelations of his malfeasance has reportedly become too much to bear. Nanny Pelosi, who recently referred to Conyers as "an icon", has now called for him to resign. So did Paul Ryan. How about that? Members of the two parties can come to agreement when necessary.

And Al Franken now has an accuser for each finger of his grope-hand, as a fifth woman has stepped up to join the parade.

It seems to be the turn of Democratics; it was in the late 1980s when Oregon Republican Senator Bob Packwood resigned over similar behavior. Wonder what Bob's doing, these days....

September 30, 2017

It is September 30, 2017. That's the last day of the current fiscal year for the federal government. After this, if a program hasn't received its official funding, it can't keep operating.

CHIP, the Children's Health Insurance Program, hasn't received funding reauthorization, a first since the program was started in 1997. It has received reauthorization a number of times and currently helps bring healthcare to millions of children. A recent bipartisan bill for reauthorization has been left hanging.

Also going away after today are a number of programs for hospitals that treat primarily poor people. The problem there is that since Obamacare was passed into law by Democratics, you have to buy health "insurance". So poor people do that, but almost always go for the "bronze plans", which carry the highest deductibles. When something serious happens and they end up in a hospital, the tab can run into the thousands.

Since the patients are poor, they can't pay. One way or the other, hospitals have to absorb the cost. The programs that are going away after tonight were designed to cushion the impact on hospitals.

Congress couldn't manage to come up with a health care plan to replace Obamacare, and they're doing nothing to address these problems.

September 25, 2017

After diagnosis of glioblastoma, average remaining lifespan is 14.5 months, though some few hang on for as much as five years. That's what did in the former Lyin' of the Senate, "Swimmer" Ted Kennedy. McCain should have retired years ago, but it looks as though this will be another forced removal from orifice.

Nature doesn't need Trump to find ways to drain the swamp.

I don't dislike McCain, unlike my view of Swimmer, but I've never seen him as part of the solution in D.C. - more like part of the problem.

April 24, 2017

Why not, asks the long-suffering taxpayer. Congress, in addition to being a bunch of rich lawyers, is also exempt from Obamacare requirements:

Congress was granted, and still enjoys, an illegal exemption from Obamacare.

Obama instructed the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) in 2013 to permit Congress to be classified as a small business — a designation that requires an enterprise to attest that it employs fewer than 50 employees. The House and the Senate obviously employ thousands of people.

One of the very few who refused to avail themselves and the staff of this exemption is, unsurprisingly, Senator Ted Cruz.

On the other hand, Obamacare is not sustainable, and so it will eventually implode.

April 17, 2017

President Trump has an opportunity to unilaterally halt an unconstitutional corporate welfare scheme, deal Obamacare a mortal blow, and save the taxpayers more than $100 billion. U.S. District Judge Rosemary Collyer ruled last year that the Obama administration had unconstitutionally dispensed subsidies to insurers, holding that it had flouted the Appropriations Clause by doling out “cost sharing reduction” (CSR) payments that hadn’t been authorized by Congress.

It's especially irksome to people like me, as we pay the full costs of mandatory health "insurance" ourselves. It's also galling to have that "buy this product or else!" gun at your head. Next thing you know, the government will demand that you purchase a car - and it must be purchased from GM.

I don't presently have to buy home insurance, although it would be pretty stupid not to do so. But there's no government mandate; it's my call. I don't have to buy auto insurance (unless I want to drive a vehicle and do so on a public road). So why do Democratics get to mandate that we buy health "insurance" - or else?

March 29, 2017

Congress just gave you another reason to use The Onion Router (TOR) or a virtual private network (VPN), as they yesterday passed legislation that allows your ISP to engage in "snoopertizing" - tracking your every move on the internet and selling the data to advertisers. Of course, some companies like Google and Amazon have been doing that for ages by tracking your search requests, purchase history, and "wish-list" data. But you go into those by consent. Yesterday's action tells your ISP it doesn't need your consent. The Republicans claim that just "levels the playing field". That's idiotic.

It's also a good reason to deploy https everywhere if you haven't already done so; it's probably the easiest way to achieve a measure of safety from a prying ISP. It's an extension for Firefox, Chrome, or Opera browsers that encrypts your communications with many (though not all) websites.

You can check here to see how your Representatives voted; "Yea" votes favored the ISP goal. This may well come back to bite a number of congress-critters in the next election.

December 01, 2016

Starting today, the U.S. government agencies such as FBI and NSA are free to engage in mass hacking of computers, phones, and other devices because Congress failed to act to prevent the new authorizing rule from taking effect.

A last-ditch effort in the Senate to block or delay rule changes that would expand the U.S. government's hacking powers failed Wednesday, despite concerns the changes would jeopardize the privacy rights of innocent Americans and risk possible abuse by the incoming administration of President-elect Donald Trump.

Democratic Senator Ron Wyden attempted three times to delay the changes, which will take effect on Thursday and allow U.S. judges will be able to issue search warrants that give the FBI the authority to remotely access computers in any jurisdiction, potentially even overseas. His efforts were blocked by Senator John Cornyn of Texas, the Senate's second-ranking Republican.

The changes will allow judges to issue warrants in cases when a suspect uses anonymizing technology to conceal the location of his or her computer or for an investigation into a network of hacked or infected computers, such as a botnet.

DoJ claims that the rule change is necessary to combat the increasingly widespread use of bot-nets by criminal hackers, a situation that has largely arisen as a result of adoption of the so-called Internet of Things - "smart" devices that allow users to remotely control home temperatures, lighting, "security" cameras, and more; nowadays you can even check the contents of your fridge while you're at the store. "Smart" televisions are becoming ubiquitous, and streaming video options are changing the way addicts get their TV fix.

The problem is that all of these devices are connected in various ways to the Internet, and virtually none of them do so securely. It may be a source of amusement to some to log into a website and pick up a feed from somebody's "baby-cam" (possible because the user didn't secure the playpen monitor's connection settings), but these things also afford criminal hackers additional tools that they can - and do - use to launch distributed denial of service attacks against the servers of a targeted site.

Obviously, Congress screwed up here, and it's particularly disturbing that Senator Cornyn shot down a fellow Republican who opposed allowing the rule change to take effect without further consideration of possible effects. Republicans claim to favor limited government, but establishment Republicans such as Cornyn put the lie to that claim. Wyden was hardly alone in opposition, and in this instance, the opposition was correct.

What is needed is not another expansion of governmental intrusion; rather, manufacturers and service providers could be - and should be - required to harden their offerings to minimize the likelihood of harnessing IoT devices by hackers.

November 25, 2016

"Our party must be big-hearted and creative and opportunistic," the ex-White House hopeful, who was President-elect Trump's greatest rival for much of the GOP primary, wrote in a Friday op-ed for the Wall Street Journal.

I had so hoped we were done hearing from this particular life-long political type, but he seems to have decided to flick his forked tongue into the air in an effort to determine whether or not it's safe to emerge from under his rock. It isn't. Get back under there, Jeb!

Bush, presumably in a direct plea to Trump, said the GOP can broaden its base by "reforming legal immigration and affirming the role that immigrants play in building up our economy and our nation."

This is perhaps the most defining contribution to Jeb!'s loss: the USA's legal immigration system doesn't need reformation, and unlike Jeb!, most people realize that. And unlike Jeb!, most people realize that illegal aliens present a clear danger to American national security and citizen health. And since Jeb! is so clearly ignorant of these issues, it's past time for this loser to shut up and go away.

November 13, 2016

PORTLAND, Ore. – After nights of protests and riots, Portland city leaders Saturday said enough is enough.

Police Chief Mike Marshman said that criminal behavior will not be tolerated.

“If you’re upset with the election, please don’t come out and protest,” he said. “We are done with criminal activity in this city. It’s time to move on and to move forward.”

And finally last night the police got a break: there were far fewer "protesters" out on the streets and police response was swift; they kept the rabble from blocking streets and setting fires, confining the folks mostly to the sidewalks. Of course, the shooting Friday night during a "protest march" may have persuaded many that it might be safer to protest at home. There are four people in custody for the shooting; two are charged with attempted murder, but police are being tight-lipped regarding the full range of charges to be filed against the quartet.

For Portland, last night was relatively quiet.

Elsewhere, not so much, as Democratics are in disarray and fuming:

Progressives believe the Democratic establishment is responsible for inflicting Donald Trump upon the nation, blaming a staid corporate wing of the party for nominating Hillary Clinton and ignoring the Working Class voters that propelled Trump to victory.

Liberals interviewed by The Hill want to see establishment Democrats targeted in primaries, and the “Clinton-corporate wing” of the party rooted out for good.

These are the same people who derided the TEA party and laughed at Republicans as TEA party-backed candidates began winning office. Now, they're looking to adopt the same tactics against their own establishment Democratics.

“We have to install the playbook of the Tea Party,” said Ohio state lawmaker Nina Turner, a Sanders surrogate. “The Tea Party had mainstream Republicans shaking in their boots. Even the ones that hung on knew they had to listen to what the grassroots was saying. Obviously, we don’t want to govern anything like the Tea Party, but from a tactical standpoint, we have to run and support progressive candidates to keep the establishment honest.”

Well, at least Nina understands how the TEA party works in that they support conservatives, but like most Democratics, she misses a crucial fact: the TEA party stands for limited government under Constitutional principles and the maximization of individual opportunity. The regressive approach that Democratics favor even as they refer to themselves as progressive involves more regulations, more taxes, and an ever-growing shadow government populated by lifer bureaucrats with the same mindset. That doesn't work, and they don't get it.

Handing regressive lifer bureaucrats the ability to write rules with the force of law, completely bypassing the legislative branch, has never been a good idea, as anyone who examines the results can clearly see. They want to see more of it; we want to see less.

EPA, DOE, the "Education" Department, and Obamacare are all in need of serious pruning. The establishment in both parties has never considered the ramifications that accompany allowing them to run wild, without supervision. This election completely blind-sided the establishment Democratics, but it was also a refutation of the complicit media.

July 18, 2016

The Republican convention began today in Cleveland, and so the media, hoping to capitalize upon increased ad placements, are all over it; bringing in slews of "analysts" to let everybody know what to expect. As if there would be any doubt.

However, with the place swarming with cops and Secret Service folks and especially in view of the recent multiple shootings of cops in two cities, it'd be a particularly stupid time for "protesters" to try anything. Not that they've ever been known for their intellectual skills.

The fact that Granny and Ferret-head are apparently the best our country can offer speaks volumes.